Married -- but just from 9 to 5

Office 'marriages' offer support without the sex

I was happily married outside the office. And without meaning to be, I was married 9 to 5 at the office, too.

It hit me when Hendo, whom I always viewed as a close colleague, came to work with a new haircut -- a stupid new haircut -- and walked into my office at People magazine to show me.

"What the hell have you done?" I gasped. Hendo was crestfallen: It was a big leap for him to even walk past a barbershop. For years, he'd 'styled' his dirty blond mop into a scruffy surfer-boy 'do befitting his north-shore lifestyle in Sydney, Australia. But in an effort to look more professional, he got a trim.

"You look like Prince Valiant," I laughed. "You really should have asked me first. Make another appointment and tell the hairdresser how I want it cut."

And there it was: My inadvertent admission that somehow, Hendo was more than just a guy I hung out with in the office stairwell while he smoked illicit cigarettes.

We shared everything from childhood stories to bragging rights on bylines.

We went for cold beers at the local lawn bowling club, dissed each other's musical tastes and sent supportive e-mails when our journalistic underbellies were scorched by the proverbial blowtorch when things went wrong. He was, in short, my office husband.

But that's as far as it went. No sexual undertones, no late-night phone calls, no chemistry.

When I became pregnant, he was the first colleague I told; when his girlfriend conceived six weeks later, he repaid the compliment. When his marriage fell apart soon after I moved to Canada, we spent hours on the phone talking; when mine did, he commiserated.

So why didn't we hook up? Like many office spouse relationships, it just wasn't like that. Once reflected in the subservient nature of the secretary-boss dynamic, the so-called office spouse has evolved into an emotional bond between men and women or same-sex colleagues that is more than a friendship, but less than a marriage.

One CNN Money article described it as having "the immediate intimacy without the sex or commitment" of marriage, adding that work spouses "may not only make you happier with your job, but may even improve your chances for promotions and raises."

It's also far more common than most people would ever admit. A 2006 American survey found that 64 per cent of workers said they had an office spouse; another Harris Interactive poll suggested 17 per cent had at least one spouse at work. "Nobody talks about it; it's just done and understood that there are these relationships," observes Gord Sheffroth, 45, a personal banking representative in Oromocto, N.B., who has been married for 22 years but admits he has several office wives. "I see them more than I do my own wife, but there's not much more carry-over than that."

It sounds innocuous enough -- a loyal partnership at work where two people watch each other's backs and even roll a lint brush over it as the need arises. In an age where we spend more time at work and less at home -- the average work week has increased to 46.3 hours, while leisure time has dropped to 29.5 hours, according to a 2007 study by the Institute for Research on Public Policy -- it's hardly surprising such relationships form, says Dr. Sue Johnson, the Ottawa-based author of Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, and noted Canadian couples therapist.

"The intimate, close part of us that flowers in a happy marriage is getting crowded out by work," she observes. "Is that a good idea? No, it's a bloody disastrous idea. It says something as to why we have millions of people who are living longer, yet who are swallowing anti-depressives every day. We need close bonds with people, and they're getting crowded out, so we find substitutes. And they're just that. They don't answer the real needs we have."

What's more, she finds the term "office spouse" offensive and confusing, as it suggests "some sexual element that is suppressed. The fact that the term 'spouse' is used is interesting. I would say these work relationships are very specific to the work context, and are not really full attachment figures. It's a collegial friendship and it's not the same."

Yet that's not how it feels to Joanna Terry, 40, who has a long-term office husband in Phillip, a 33-year-old married man with a two-year-old son. The pair started working together four-and-a-half years ago at CCA Global in Burlington, Ont., and "hit it off right away," she says. They frequently travel together, cover each other's work and have a regular lunch date as friends would, but their partnership is much more. "I cook on the weekend and make extras for my work husband's wife. They're young and both working. I babysit for them on a regular basis," says Terry. "I always know what he's thinking. I help him shop, I remind him of his anniversary and birthdays; it's more than a friendship and less than a brother. I always have a sounding board of someone who will talk me off a ledge before I do something stupid. He's helped my career and I love going to work because there is someone I'm so compatible with. If I'm having a fight with my boyfriend or my kid, it's him I talk to."

Close friendship or dangerous liaison? According to Johnson, such attachments work against a true, bonded relationship. "A husband or wife knows you best. If I'm attacked in my professional life, I really need my husband's comfort. If they prefer their work spouse in that case, they're saying they don't have a bond with their husband or wife. And if you can't talk to your spouse about work," she warns, "I would say you have a problem with your relationship."

Yet Terry says while her live-in boyfriend "doesn't always understand," neither she nor Phillip would cross the line. "We talk about everything, but I've never hugged him. It would be weird. Not that there's something wrong with hugging a co-worker, but at this point, it would be weird."

Yet a hug may come soon; Phillip and his young family move to Calgary next year, a situation Terry admits will be a blow. "Yeah, we've joked around about it -- what will we do?" she says, wistfully. "You're used to seeing someone five days and having them around."

That impermanence is definitely part of the appeal, and the difference between a real and office spouse, says Gord Sheffroth. When one office wife moves to another location, he says, they may stay in touch -- but he soon has another friendship to fill the gap. One current work wife is "more of a mothering type. She's taken the lint brush to me, waters the flowers and cleans my desk." Another "is a real firecracker. She's married, we're all married, but everyone is throwing out their best stuff and saying 'pick me'. Everyone is competitive in my office. She's full of life and everyone is still vying for her attention, but I think I won it. Now it's all about maintenance."

If that sounds like a man teetering on the edge of indiscretion, Sheffroth says it's not so. He loves his wife, Karla, he says, but also believes that having close relationships with a work wife is professionally positive.

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